WALVIS BAY – An Angolan businessman has partnered with two local businessmen to set up an oil and gas training academy at Walvis Bay.
Alberto Figueiredo is the founder of the internationally known company, Operatec Marine and Industrial Training Centres and his Namibian partners are Absalom Fillipus and Knowledge Ipinge.
Figueiredo is set to inject N$9 million to set up the world-accredited centre that is expected to start with the first training within the coming weeks.
He has been providing services to the oil and gas industry for the past 27 years and set up two training facilities in Angola after realising the lack of skills in that country.
During a brief visit on Friday, Figueiredo told Walvis Bay mayor Trevino Forbes that they have been looking for countries to expand their services to.
“We decided on Namibia, given the current positive outlook on the oil discovery and reached out to Fillipus and Ipinge. The aim is to train as many Namibians to avoid jobs being taken up by outside experts,” he explained.
According to him, his business has been providing services to the oil and gas industry for years and this will be beneficial to Namibia too.
He added that they are experts in diving, training, maintenance and subsea services.
“However, we realised the need for well-trained personnel and set up Operatec to provide training not only to Angolans but all over the world.
We have conducted training for Brazil and Spain among others. We want to emulate this success in Namibia too,” he said.
Land secured
The trio was allocated a piece of land at Farm 39 to set up the training facility. However, Fillipus said they will start with training within the next few days in a rented space.
“We want to start immediately with the training so that we also work towards accreditation from the Offshore Petroleum Industry Training Organisation (OPITO),” Fillipus noted.
OPITO assists and requires training institutions to achieve globally accepted guidelines for the oil and gas industry to ensure safety in the industry.
In the meantime, he said the students will be sent to Angola if they enrol for OPITO-accredited classes.
Fillipus also said the opening of the centre will make Namibia the third country in Africa that provides such training.
Currently, only Angola and South Africa have such centres. The South African one in Saldanha Bay is full to such an extent that several Namibians were sent back last week due to space constraints.
Forbes on his part said they welcome the development of the centre as it is in line with the vision of Walvis Bay.
“Our young people need training and employment opportunities and this training will make it easier for them to get employed in the oil and gas industry.